


Season 14 Ficlets

by IneffableFangirl_writes



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, M/M, chapters summaries include title of episode that they're based on, season 14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2019-10-18 11:15:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17579810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IneffableFangirl_writes/pseuds/IneffableFangirl_writes
Summary: Just a couple of ficlets inspired by me marathoning season 14.





	1. Old Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set immediately after the events of Season 14, Episode 6, “Optimism”

“Cas, I’m not an old man, am I?”  
Castiel looked up from the lore he was reading and studied the man next to him in bed. He had a few grey hairs but for the most part, his human body still appeared to be the same as it had the previous day.  
“On the contrary, you are in the years past your prime but in no way an old man.”  
“Past my prime?”  
“Human males are in their prime in their thirties and you are less than three months from your fortieth birthday.”  
“So I still have a few months of prime time left.”  
“Dean, even after your prime, you are not considered an old man until you are of retiring age. That’s at least twenty-five years from now.”  
Dean grumbled something noncommittal.  
“Why is this relevant, Dean?”  
Dean grumbled some more and Castiel sighed pointedly and closed his book.  
“Dean.”  
“Jack called me ‘old man’ on the last hunt.”  
Doing his best to stifle a laugh, Cas bit his lip and took a breath, looking at the cover of the lore book to best keep himself from smiling. Once he’d mastered himself, he met Dean’s eyes and raised a sardonic eyebrow.  
“So he damaged the eternally-young image you keep of yourself?”  
“That’s not,” Dean spluttered, “You’re missing--no Cas that’s not it.”  
“Oh? What then?”  
Dean’s jaw worked rhythmically as he tried to think of what to say and Cas took the moment to lean in and kiss him, soft and slow.  
“You’ll always be young to me, Dean.”  
Dean responded somewhat sulkily with a grunt and Cas nipped his lower lip before working down his neck to mouth at his clavicle.  
“There are a few things I had in mind for you, but maybe you’re too old and grouchy to handle it?” Castiel suggested playfully and Dean snorted.  
“I’m not an idiot Cas, I know what you’re trying to do.”  
“So just not interested then?” Cas asked between the kisses he was tracing along Dean’s collarbone.  
“I didn’t say that either.”  
Cas took the opportunity to lean in and bite the top of his pectoral muscle and Dean hissed a breath in. Cas took that as an encouragement and began to work his way down across Dean’s chest.  
“Are you going to sulk or are you going to prove you’re just as young and limber as ever?”  
Cas paused and looked up at Dean, eyes crinkled at the corners in affection. And dragged one of Dean’s hands over the bulge in Cas’s pajama pants.  
“I can always handle this myself if you’re too old and tired.”  
With a little growl, Dean straddled Cas and pinned him to their bed.  
“Manipulative little shit.”  
Cas lifted his hips to grind against Dean and smiled.  
“Would you prefer I left you to sulk?”  
“Shut up.”  
“Make me.”  
Dean did.  
Once they were finished, laying entangled in their bed with Cas resting his head on Dean’s shoulder and Dean absently playing with his hair, Castiel touched a few of the grey hairs at his lover’s temple.  
“For the record, I think you’re getting even more attractive as you age.”  
Dean chuckled and traced a finger along Cas’s jaw.  
“I guess I’m only getting more attractive then.”  
Castiel hummed happily.  
“I don’t know how I’ll keep my hands off you.”  
Pulling blankets over them, Dean reached over and clicked off the lamp on his bedside table.  
“Personally, I’m hoping that you don’t.”


	2. The Wake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during the montage of drinking and the night/morning after Jack Kline’s death prior to Sam suggesting they bring Jack back.

“To Jack...he was a hell of a kid.”  
They didn’t cry as they sat around. They told stories about Jack and Dean shared their quasi-father-son trip--teaching Jack to drive, getting burgers and shakes, going fishing. He kept the thoughts he’d had about the kid to himself--how it felt like Jack was his son and he was giving him all the things that he’d love about his childhood. Like he and Cas were Jack’s fathers and they’d lost him.   
Sam reminded everyone about Jack’s first vegetable and that set off a round of ‘Jack’s first’ stories. His first time going grocery shopping. To the movies. Swimming. Bowling. Doing laundry. Ordering at a restaurant.   
“I’m trying to tell him how to romance this lunatic and he keeps asking me about ‘the sex’. Kid can’t stop calling it ‘the sex’. I was so not ready for that talk, especially in the middle of a case.”  
“I never thought about the point where Jack would be interested in humans romantically and physically,” Castiel admitted. “I thought at this point I’d be enrolling him in some form of early education program.”  
Sam laughed.   
“He surprised all of us with that fast-grow trick. Infant to eighteen in ten minutes. Remember Dean? He was just standing naked in the nursery.”  
“God,” Dean recalled. “I remember watching you explain why it was important to wear clothes to him. The kid just didn’t get it for the longest time.”  
“He deserved better than us,” Sam said quietly and Dean nodded.  
“He loved the two of you. And he loved me. And Mary and Bobby and all of the parallel universe hunters. It wasn’t always easy but it was his life.”  
They talked and drank until Sam tapped out, leaving Cas and Dean continuing with the drinks and conversation. At some point, Dean switched from glasses to just the bottle.  
“He told me he thought of us as his dads,” Cas said quietly and Dean shook his head and took another swig from the bottle of whiskey.  
“He deserved everything, Cas. He was a good kid; his heart was in the right place. And we got him killed.”  
“Lucifer did this, Dean.”  
“Don’t tell me you don’t feel guilty.”  
“Of course I feel guilty,” Castiel snapped. “His mother entrusted his care and protection to me and now he’s dead. He never got to experience a life when we weren’t at war with hell or parallel-universe Michael or Lucifer. He never lived in the world his mother wanted for him, or I wanted for him. He was a child and a weapon and he never got to be all the things he could have been--” Somewhere in the sentence, Cas’s voice cracked and though his eyes were dry, his voice shook.  
“Yeah.”  
“I want the release of tears, but I can’t do it. I’m not sure if I don’t think I deserve it or if my vessel isn’t capable anymore or if or something else entirely. I want to weep for my son as I watched Abraham weep for Isaac as he thought my father would have him kill his firstborn. It hurts, Dean.”  
Dean wanted to fight something, wanted to hit something and scream and hold Cas tightly to his chest all at once. He took another drink and said nothing for a long moment.   
“It worse than hell, Cas.”  
“Worse than falling.”  
“Worse than the Mark.”  
“Worse that losing my wings.”  
“Worse than fighting through Purgatory.”  
“Worse than being overtaken by Leviathan.”  
“It’s like when I lost Sam. Not the same, but just as hard--Goddamnit why did he have to die?”  
Castiel sighed and Dean automatically put a hand on his knee.  
“Get some sleep, Cas.”  
“I am an angel of the Lord. I don’t need sleep.”  
“Tonight you do.”  
Cas nodded slowly and stood, patting Dean on the shoulder.  
“You should as well.”  
“I will once I’ve finished my last drink.”  
Castiel nodded again and walked a little unsteadily from the kitchen and back through the halls of the bunker to his bedroom.  
Dean took another drink.  
And another.  
And another.  
And another.


	3. A Night at Rocky's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during/after the events of ‘Nihilism’

Some blend of country music and classic rock crooned through the speakers and Dean wiped the wet rings left by drinking glasses on the bar with a clean rag. Mondays were slow usually, and except for the token drunk passed out on the last stool, it was empty again. The after work ‘quick one’ was done and the businesspeople in suits and ties went back out into the evening as quickly as they’d come in. They weren’t his target crowd, but he made good drinks and money was money. Hanging his rag to dry, he grabbed the broom from a closet and busied himself with sweeping the floor. It wasn’t filthy or anything, but the act of sweeping was calming.With the last rays of summer sun coming in through the windows and the white noise of the broom whisking across the floor, it felt like time has slowed to the rate of molasses, a warm, dreamlike sensation.  
The bell on the front door rang and a woman in jeans and a leather jacket that had seen better days stepped into Rocky’s and glanced around until her gaze landed on Dean.  
“Dean Winchester?”  
“Who’s asking?”  
“Sam sent me. He said to tell you Poughkeepsie.”  
“What?”  
The woman rolled her neck and Dean heard a faint crackle-pop as she shifted her shoulders back.  
“Poughkeepsie.”  
...  
It was a busy night at Rocky’s; Fridays always were. He had two waitresses that worked Thursdays through Sunday nights to help him keep up with the weekend crowd, but just the one for the workweek. Louise, a bottle-blonde in a black ‘Rocky’s’ tank top and jeans set her stack of empty glasses on the counter next to the sink and waited until she had Dean’s attention.  
“The guy in the green shirt keeps trying to grab my ass. Can I break his fingers?”  
“No. I have the white Russians for table three.”  
“Dean,” she huffed and he offered her his characteristic charming smile.   
“Lou, you know the rules. No breaks. Crack, bruise, bend, hell, even a little dislocation is fine. No breaks.”  
She organized the white Russians on a tray and carried them over to the appropriate table, coming back with two credit cards.  
“Two tabs opening on three,” she said as she entered the information into the register and tucked the cards into an organizer under the counter. “And I’m switching the playlist. I’ve listened to the best of ACDC all night and if I hear ‘Back in Black’ one more time, I’m going to lost my shit.”  
“Fine, but don’t pull out anymore of that bubblegum garbage we do for bachelorettes.”  
“No promises.”  
He mixed drinks and wiped the counter and gave change. He stacked dirty glasses and nodded at long stories. He even hummed along with the playlist that Louise had put on; he wasn’t the world’s biggest Springsteen fan but the man could write a song. He was muttering the lyrics to “Thunder Road” under his breath when a man came up to the counter, cradling one of his hands.  
“Your waitress assaulted me!”  
“That seems pretty unlikely,” Dean replied, leaning on the bar to give the man his full attention.  
“You calling me a liar, buddy? I think she broke my fingers!”  
“Hmm,” Dean said thoughtfully. “That sounds serious.”  
“Damn right it’s serious! I want her fired.”  
“Did you grab her ass?”  
“What?”  
“I just want to know what happened. Did you. Grab her ass.”  
“How dare you. I have a wife.”  
“So that’s a yes then. All right let’s play this out. You pay for your drink. You leave. You put some ice on your fingers which are bruised at best. I don’t tell my waitress that she can drag you out herself.”  
“WHAT?”  
“She defended herself against an unwanted advance. She didn’t break anything of yours. Pay and leave.”  
The man’s angry face became Bobby’s.  
“Dean, this ain’t real. Wake up, boy.”  
...  
The very end of lunch rush and Dean was rolling an empty keg out and re-attaching the hose to a new one when a man, maybe his age or a little older sat down on a barstool directly in front of him and laid a fifty-dollar note down on the counter.  
“As much vodka as I can order with this.”  
“Depends on whether or not you want good vodka,” Dean replied, sweeping the bill off and checking it with a counterfeit pen.   
“Middle of the road.”  
“You got it. On ice?”  
“Straight.”   
Dean gave him a thumbs-up and put it in the register before taking a bottle of Tito’s from the shelf behind him and pouring it into a glass. He put it and a cocktail napkin in front of the man.  
“Just signal when you need a refill; I’ll tell you when you’re out of cash.”  
The man tossed back the drink in two swallows and tapped two fingers on the bar. Dean shrugged and poured some more into the glass.  
“Bad week?”  
“Something like that.”  
“Oh?” He scanned the bar for customers waiting for service--nothing. “You want to talk about it?”  
The man took a sip of his vodka and met Dean’s eyes; his glowed a celestial blue and Dean nearly dropped the bottle of vodka.  
“What the?”  
“Michael says hello.”

 

Dean gasped and sat up in the armchair he’d been dozing in. Inside his mind, Michael pounded against the door to the fridge in Rocky’s and shouted. He was still trapped. Everyone was safe.   
His heart was racing and he tried to take deep breaths, to calm himself. He was still in the process when a hand settled on his shoulder. Grabbing the hand, Dean twisted, pulled himself up, and was promptly tossed to the floor with a knee pressed to his sternum, suddenly face to face with Castiel’s searching blue eyes.  
“ Dean, it’s me.”  
“Get off,” he growled and the angel ceased in pinning him to the floor and stepped back, offering him a hand up, which he took begrudgingly. At this point, nearly anyone else would have asked him if he was okay, but Castiel didn’t. He’d been possessed by an archangel; he knew the toll it took. Instead, he sat down on the armchair next to the one Dean had been dozing in and looked expectantly at the hunter. Sighing, Dean sat back down.  
“You can’t not sleep, Dean.”  
“I don’t know, I seem to be pretty good at it.”  
“You can’t guard your mind if you’re too tired.”  
“And I can’t guard my mind while I’m asleep.”  
“I can.”  
“Because why be a single angel suite when I could go for a double?”  
“Dean,” Castiel sighed.  
Dean ran his hands through his hair, back and forth until it was thoroughly mussed. He looked tired and a little paler than usual but he was still beautiful. Castiel reached across and laid a hand on his knee.  
“Tell me about Rocky’s.”  
Sitting back in his chair, Dean scooted his knee a little closer so Cas could keep his hand on it.   
“How I got it is kind of fuzzy, but something about killing a really old vampire who had a ton of cash in his mansion. Rocky’s was pretty beat up when I got it, but I put it back together and then Pamela showed up like magic and I had a head waitress. And beer. And we didn’t have a lot of customers but it was enough to pay the property taxes and the booze tax and keep buying stock.”  
“And Sam and I kept hunting?”  
“Yeah. You were never around but I knew that you were working and that you’d come back after each hunt.”  
Castiel paused to choose his words.  
“In your world with Rocky’s...were we...like we are now?”  
Dean glanced away.  
“No.”  
“Oh.”  
“Now that I’m out of it I think I know why, though.”  
Castiel cocked his head to one side and Dean smiled halfheartedly at him, reaching over to cover the hand on his knee with his own hand.  
“Michael wanted me complacent. He gave me a bar that basically ran itself, a waitress to help run things and drink with me, and a reason that you and Sam weren’t there. I think if you’d been in it I would have been wary.”  
“Wary?”  
“There’s a difference between complacency and happiness. I had something that was nice and kept me busy but I didn’t have anything I had to fight for. And I think if you’d been there…”  
Cas waited for him to continue, giving his knee a little squeeze for encouragement.   
“I would have been suspicious. Having you and a place that was ours and not having to keep hunting? It would have been too good to be true. I’ve been in djinn-fantasies and Heaven and things that good don’t happen to me, not for real.”  
“I imagine my brother would have also been uncomfortable with you having sex with me...even a fictional me...while under his watch.”  
Dean smirked.  
“Burning down worlds and killing God is one thing, but an angel and a human boning? A bridge too far.”  
Cas chuckled.   
“When you phrase it as such, his standards do sound ridiculous.”  
“The guy’s a loon, Cas. Him and Amara could have angry tea parties together if she and Chuck took a break from the sibling-multiverse tour.”  
Yawning, Dean cracked his neck one way, then the other and shook his head sharply, slapping his cheeks a few times to rouse himself.  
“Dean, you need sleep.”  
“I can’t, Cas. Not with Michael banging around in my head.”  
“I’ll watch over you. I know you don’t want me in your head, but what if I just leave a trip wire? If the door budges, I’ll hear it and I’ll wake you up.”  
Dean hemmed and hawed a little, grumbling as Cas hauled him to his feet.  
“Would it help if I let you inside me as well?”  
Dean’s smirk returned and he ran a hand down Castiel’s side.  
“You’d like that wouldn’t you?”  
“Very much.”  
Dean hesitated; “Maybe after I get some sleep. I want to be sure he stays in there when I’m unconscious before I deliberately...distract myself.”  
“Wise, though disappointing.”  
“Two things I’ve never been called before.”  
Snorting, Cas held Dean’s hand and led him towards their bedroom and let Dean go through the exercises required for sleep--teeth cleaning, changing out of dirty clothes, putting weapons into drawers and under pillows and beds and on top of bedside tables. Once he was settled, Castiel shrugged off his trenchcoat and removed his tie and button-up shirt before toeing off his shoes and undoing his slacks.  
“Are you trying to tempt me?” Dean asked, propping himself on one arm to watch the angel strip.  
“It wasn’t my intention, but it appears to be working.”  
“I thought we were here so I could sleep.”  
“If you’re turning down sex, you must need it.”  
Dean grumbled something else and Cas slid under the covers next to him, wrapping one arm over Dean’s middle and tucking the other under his neck.   
“I have you, Dean.”  
Dean settled himself deeper into the mattress and his breathing became slower and heavier within only a few minutes. And if Castiel used their connection to bat away bad dreams so that Dean could sleep soundly, that was no one’s business but his own.


	4. Sunk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set during/after "Prophet and Loss"

Castiel fumed quietly in the bunker. Jack was taking a shift reading angel lore and Cas took that time to shut himself in the training room and let out some of his frustration on the target dummy. He didn’t tap into his grace, just shrugged off his trenchcoat, removed his shirt and tie, and punched the dummy in the jaw with all the might he could muster from his vessel. When he felt his grace flare in response, he retrieved a pair of enochian-warded handcuffs and strapped them both to one wrist. With his grace under suppression, he took another swing. Then another. And another. Blows to the head, the chest, the throat. Crosses and uppercuts and sucker punches.   
Sweat began to drip from his brow and he swiped across it with the back of one hand and kept going. He kept hitting when one of his knuckles split and when he wasn’t sure if the salt on his face was sweat or tears or both. Damn Dean. Damn his stupid choices and his decision to give up and this suicidal plan to sink himself in the ocean with Michael for eternity away from his family. Another knuckle split and when Jack knocked on the door, he was panting, two knuckles bloody and sweat pouring down his chest.  
“Father?”  
Cas tried to magic himself into looking presentable and then noticed the angel cuffs strapped to one wrist. Right, he’s forgotten about those.  
“Yes Jack?”  
Jack pushed the door open and found Castiel unlocking the angel cuffs, wiping them down, and replacing them in a box on a shelf.  
“You’re training?”  
“Yes. How is your research going?”  
“Our family is complicated.”  
Cas nodded, wiping his face with a hand towel before moving to mop his chest.  
“That it is.”  
“When Sam left, he sounded worried about Da--Dean. Is everything okay?”  
“Dean sometimes makes rash decisions, much like you sometimes do. I’m concerned that he will go through with this one.”  
“What’s he going to do?”  
It was times like these that Castiel felt the weight of parenthood. Once Jack’s grace regenerated, he would be more powerful than Cas himself, and he was a hunter in his own right but he was also chronologically less than five years old. He was a child in many ways and part of a parent’s job was to shield their young from harm whenever possible. However, would it be fair to Jack to share the burden that Castiel carried? Would the knowledge that his second (third?) father was going to leave him as well cause more damage than his discovery that Dean had left with no ‘goodbye’ and was never coming back? Would his silence be seen as a secondary betrayal?  
“He’s building a Ma’lak box--a box built to contain anything, even an archangel. And he’s going to shut himself in it.”  
“Forever?”  
Cas nodded and Jack’s face fell.  
“But Michael is trapped in his head, right?”  
“He’s not sure how much longer he can hold Michael. He’s wearing at Dean’s cage, he’s afraid that he will escape.”  
“Oh.”  
“That’s why we’re doing all this research. Because Dean’s alternative is eternal isolation.”  
Jack seemed to notice Castiel’s shirtless, somewhat bloody state.  
“What happened to you?”  
“Training.”  
“You’re bleeding.”  
“Just testing my limits without my abilities.”  
“Once this is over, will you train with me? Without your grace, like you were just now?”  
Cas nodded.  
“It will be good practice for me to spar without my grace and it will help you to practice not reaching for yours while it is recovering.”  
“I want to show Sam and Dean that I’m useful without it.”  
“They know you are,” Cas said, beginning to gather up his clothing. “You assisted Dean on that case with the necromancer and were of great help.”  
“Thanks.”  
“Of course. Now I believe I should clean myself. Why don’t you take a break from the research and decide what we’re having for lunch.”  
“You don’t eat.”  
“No, but you do, and I would enjoy sharing a meal with you.”  
“Okay!”  
He bounded off and Castiel sighed, looking after his son. It was an odd thing, being someone’s father, especially when there was so much else going on in his life. The man he loved was considering what equated to suicide and Sam had forbidden him from speaking to Dean about it, saying it would only make things worse. Cas agreed that it would, but not saying anything, not speaking to Dean even just to hear his voice, was painful in a soul-deep way. He hadn’t gotten to say goodbye and if Sam didn’t manage to convince Dean that the Ma’lak box was a bad idea, he would be left with each of Dean’s moments with him being ‘the last time’. There would be the last time they went on a drive, the last conversation they had, the last movie they watched, the last drink they’d shared, the last case they worked, the last time they’d made love. Dean would never have called it that--making love--but Cas couldn’t help but think of it that way. His human was so physical; he showed his feelings and nowhere more so than when he and Castiel were entwined in his bed or Cas’s. Not that they didn’t have sex elsewhere, but the times shut up in one of their rooms when they took their time, those times were Castiel’s favorites. And if Dean continued down this path, he would never have another.  
Cas turned the knob of the shower to as hot as the water would go and shed the rest of his clothing, stepping under the spray. He let his grace heal the split knuckles, ease the soreness of lactic acid settling in his muscles, loose the tension gripping his spine. He could have whisked himself clean, but humans had identified something useful in showers--they were an ideal place to think. He washed the human way, soap and a cloth, scrubbing at exposed skin until it was pink and working shampoo into his hair. Once there was no more washing to be had, he rinsed the soap and sweat off and turned the knob, stepping into the cool air of the bathroom. He was careful to use the bath mat as he toweled off and returned to his room to dress. He wanted nothing more than to sneak into Dean’s room and steal one of his shirts, to wear it instead of his usual shirt and tie. That would certainly alert Jack to his concerns, however, so he pulled on a clean undershirt and flicked his finger at the pile of wrinkled clothes he’d been wearing earlier. The dirt and sweat vanished and they once again smelled faintly of ozone and honey as Cas pulled them back on. He would eat lunch with Jack and then they would find a way to save Dean. Because not saving Dean was not an option. 

When Dean called, he was not as unruffled as he wanted to be.  
“Dean! It's so good to hear from you,” he said, internally wincing. ‘Playing it cool’, as Dean would put it, was not his strong point when it came to his family, especially to Dean. He remembered a time when Dean had meant less to him--not nothing, never nothing--but less. Dean’s safety always mattered though his feelings had mattered less, but now after years of knowing him and of loving him, he couldn’t put up the facade of the Angel of the Lord like he used to be able to. Dean had worked past all of that, he was just Castiel now. For more or less, grace or graceless, broken or new, scarred or healed, he was Castiel and Dean was Dean.   
“Oh. Well. good. Uh, listen Cas. Uh, Sam and I are working this case.”  
A rush of relief flowed through him. If Dean was working a case, Sam must have convinced him not to go through with the Ma’lak box. The last time he saw Dean would not be the very last.   
“You’re working a case? That is so good to hear. So, I assume that means you’re not going through with it, because I have to say, Dean, this plan of yours, it was born of – of desperation, not reason.”  
“My plan?”  
“I-I know that I’m not suppose to know what I know, but…”  
“Look, I’m fine with my plan, okay? We can talk about my plan later.”  
Shit.  
“Dean. You are making a terrible mistake.”  
“Does the name “Tony Alvarez” mean anything to you?”  
He couldn’t do this right now. He couldn’t talk about a prophet-to-be while Dean Winchester was apparently unruffled by the idea of being eternally trapped with an archangel driving him to insanity. But he answered. Of course he answered.   
“Y-Yes.”  
“Say more.”  
“Antonio Alvarez is – is next in line to be prophet when Donatello dies.”  
“Okay. Thanks Cas.”  
“Wait, Dean, Dean. We need to have a conversation.” This was not going to be the last time he spoke to Dean; it couldn’t be. Dean wasn’t big on goodbyes and if he went through with is, the last words he could hear from his hunter’s throat were ‘Thanks Cas’, which were fine words to hear but not fine last ones.   
“Look, I really got to handle this right now, okay? So, thank you, and uh… it’s good to hear your voice.”  
“Dean?”  
The line was dead and Cas stared momentarily at the phone before setting it down. He felt like starting a fight or flying to where Dean and Sam were and taking the older Winchester by the shoulders and shaking him or kissing him or maybe some combination of both until Dean saw sense. It was less than an hour later when Dean called again to ask how this all could have happened, what it meant for each prophet down the line, how it had to end.  
“You know how,” he said gravely, and hung up. Donatello was his fault and though he hated the idea of killing him, the man was already brain dead. There was no spark of life in his mind and his soul had been gone for a long time. All he would be doing was letting a body rest.  
“Jack, I need to run an errand. Can you stay at the binker and field calls from any hunters on the road?”  
“Can I come with?”  
“If anyone calls and needs a lore check or a location, we need someone in the bunker to make sure that information is correct. I need you here for now.”  
His son frowned but nodded.  
“It’s not just busy-work, Jack. It’s important that the hunters have support; it can be a matter of life and death.”  
“I know,” Jack sighed. “I’ll bring the phones into the library with me.”  
“Thank you.”

Once all was said and done, Donatello miraculously resurrected and requesting chicken, the Ma’lak box parked on a trailer in the bunker garage, Cas and the Winchester brothers were met with Jack. The boy was so overjoyed to see Dean that he throw himself at his surrogate father and wrapped his arms around him, squeezing as tightly as he could.  
“I knew you wouldn’t leave me,” he said softly, and Dean flushed. However hard Jack had fought for Michael’s banishment to be the first priority, he clung to Dean and after a moment, let Dean rub his back and say something like, ‘hey champ’ or another equally sports-metaphor-infused term of affection. Usually after a hug lasting more than a few seconds, Dean disentangled himself from the embrace, but he allowed Jack to cling until the young man was ready to let go. And later that night once they had all gone to bed, Dean slipped quietly into Castiel’s bedroom and laid down on the bed next to him.  
“I know you’re mad,” he said softly.  
Cas looked up from his book and raised an eyebrow.  
“Okay, more than mad. But this time yesterday I thought I would never see you again...can I sleep here tonight?”  
Castiel grunted an affirmative and scooted over to one side of the bed, returning his attention to the book he was reading. He felt one of Dean’s warm arms wrap around his waist and he absently ran a hand over the human’s hair.  
“This doesn’t mean I’m not angry,” he said without looking up.   
“I know. But you’re here.”  
“As are you.”


	5. The Snake That Bites Its Tail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post Ouroboros

Cleaning up corpses was always messy work, but it was more difficult when they were the people you knew--had known. When they were friends, comrades, teammates in the fight. It was always hard to lose another hunter. And they had lost more than one. Maggie had screamed Sam’s name as she burned and the others lay in pools of blood on the bunker floor. It was a mark of his time with the Winchesters that Castiel didn’t try to sweep up the blood with his grace, but instead, looked to the Winchester brothers and asked gravely,  
“Will we take them to the morgue until their funerals?”  
It was a mark of Dean’s growth that he only replied with a hoarse,  
“Yeah Cas,” and watched as the angel leaned over and lifted the nearest body with care, carrying them in his arms from the room and down towards the morgue. Dean picked up the next man but was too shaky to manage the body by himself and looked to Sam, who stood beside Maggie’s body, staring down at her. Dean looked to Jack and beckoned for him. Jack cocked his head in that way he did, like a confused puppy, before nodding and walking over to lift the man’s legs. Dean took the shoulders and they walked together, silent, bearing the body of their fallen.   
Sam sat with Maggie while they moved all of the other bodies. When he finally picked her up and carried her shell from the control room, Cas looked at the blood on the floor and the table. He looked at Dean, dark-circled eyes and a haggard expression creasing the hunter’s bruised face.   
“Go prepare them, Dean. Jack and I will clean up.”  
Dean nodded and when Jack and Castiel were the only two in the battle room, Castiel led him to the supply closet and handed him two buckets.  
“Fill these three-quarters of the way with cold water.”  
“Why?”  
“Cold water gets bloodstains out. Hot water sets them.”  
Jack did as he was told and Castiel pulled out two mops that had seen better days and a bucket of rags. While waiting for Jack to return, he wiped away what of the blood he could with the rags, tossing the bloody ones into the bucket to be washed. Upon Jack’s return, he handed him a mop and demonstrated the way to properly scrub the floor.  
“Can’t you just,” Jack waved his fingers, mimicking Cas’s mojo.  
“I can, but human life is precious. And taking time to clean up shows the respect that they deserve.”  
“Wouldn’t it be more respectful to remove the traces of their last moments? They were terrible.”  
“Accepting humanity means accepting that they feel deeply, love and fear and pain and joy. You can’t only take the parts you like. You have to take all of it. You’ll understand when you’re older.”  
Jack looked doubtful but took the mop and scrubbed the floor while Castiel mixed bleach in with the other bucket of water before dipping his mop in and following behind where Jack scrubbed with the bleach solution. When his son gave him an odd look, he explained that bleach was a cleaning solution and he was following behind to put a layer of disinfectant on Jack’s work. There was so much that Jack wanted to ask, so much that Cas wanted to say, but they worked instead until the room smelled of bleach instead of blood.  
“Go to bed, Jack.”  
“But Sam and Dean are with the bodies of my friends.”  
“There will be time to say goodbye in the morning, Jack. We have just had a hard series of days and you need rest.”  
“I’m not tired.”  
“Then bathe first and just...try.”  
Jack wanted to argue, could feel himself readying to respond with a reason he should stay, but instead he pressed his lips together and nodded.  
“Yes, Father.”  
“Thank you, Jack.”

 

The morgue was cold but everything felt cold at a time like this. Dean wiped away the worst of the blood before he slid each body into a compartment. They would wrap them in the morning, when they weren’t still battered and bleeding from fighting a demigod and an archangel. When they didn’t still smell the blood of their fellow hunters, didn’t still hear their last screams echoing in their ears. Now was too soon.   
“Sammy,” he said softly, as Sam wiped blood from a man’s temple and cheek. “We’ll hold the funerals tomorrow. But we’re still bleeding.”  
“You were still bleeding when we burned Cas.”  
“We had Jack with us, we were on the run. This time we can do it right. And we can’t do it right like this, Sam.”  
“No,” Sam agreed, “Not like this.”  
The door to the morgue sounded like a final base drumbeat, ending the day. 

When Dean stepped out of the shower, steam curling off his body from water so hot it nearly scalded him, Castiel was sitting on his bed in pajama bottoms and a grey tee-shirt.   
“Hello Dean.”  
Dean tried to reply, but his throat tightened and he just nodded. He was tired down to his bones, so tired that every part of his body and mind ached. He gestured at Cas’s clothing and the angel nodded.  
“It didn’t feel right to make their blood disappear. I put them in the wash.”  
“Yeah,” he choked out, and Cas turned his head away as Dean pulled on boxers and a pair of flannel pajama pants. He wanted to make a smart-ass remark about how Cas had seen it all before but he didn’t have the energy. Instead he sat down on the other side of the bed and pulled the covers over himself. He stared at the wall and when a warm hand rested on his shoulder, he flinched.  
“Dean,” Cas said softly.   
The hunter groaned softly and rolled over towards his angel.  
“You’re going to have to make it quick, Cas. I haven’t slept--really slept--in months.”  
Cas chuckled softly and batted away Dean’s clumsy swipe at his waistband.  
“Dean, I don’t want sex. Not now. I just want to rub your back, to touch you and let you relax. You haven’t let your guard down since Michael. Let me help you.”  
Dean mumbled an affirmative and rolled back over. Castiel ran his hand down Dean’s back in a long stroke before settling his hands on either side of Dean’s spine and taking the smallest tendril of grace to help him loosen the knots in his shoulders and back. He went slowly, his touch a caress rather than the push and twist of massage. Dean’s breathing slowed and evened out, but Cas kept stroking his back gently, enjoying the feeling of being able to touch Dean’s skin, to feel him breathing slow and steady and to feel the hum of his mind already crafting dreams. He was so tired from these past months and sitting beside him while he rested was something Cas had prayed for, though it was more out of habit than of requesting God’s help. There was much waiting for him in the morning--many a hunter’s funeral, discussions with his son both about the snake he kept from the gorgon and about his newly restored grace--but he had some hours of time to watch Dean rest, knowing that until he woke, no harm would come to him. Angels didn’t sleep but Castiel laid down beside Dean and wrapped an arm around his waist, closing his eyes to rest them. Rest was something they could all use tonight.


	6. Mother of Winchesters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meant to be read as a coda for ‘Absence’

Sam put a hand on his shoulder to keep him from going to Dean, to standing beside him, holding his hand, supporting him in whatever way he could. Sam was right though. When Dean hurt, he became a blade lashing out to hurt others in kind. Perhaps it was because neither of his parents taught him how to deal with pain. Perhaps it was the time in hell when it was hurt or be hurt. Perhaps it was none of these or all of these or some mixture of other things still. The fact of the matter was that the pyre burned at the crossroads with the body of what looked like but would never be Mary Winchester.   
“I swear if he did something to her, if she is--you’re dead to me.”  
He couldn’t get sick, not really, but what felt like nausea curled in his belly. How could he go to Dean again knowing that his son had killed Mary Winchester? He’d lost Mary, Dean, and Jack all in one fell swoop. Sam might accept him still but would he ever see Castiel as anyone other than a failure? Would Cas ever see himself as anything but a failure?  
Smoke curled into the sky and woodsmoke and perfumed oil masked the smell of burning flesh...mostly. He broke everything down into molecules and he could still sense it, human flesh becoming smoke and ash. Dean stood staring, barely blinking, and Cas watched the flames consume everything. He didn’t dare look at Dean except in sideways glances, in quick, furtive looks. Was this how it felt to lose everything? He’d lost everything before but it seemed to hurt a little differently each time.   
“Our kid did this,” Dean said so softly that only Cas could hear him, and only because he was listening so intently to the sound of Dean’s breathing, to his heartbeat, to the waves of pain bleeding off of him. He knew he wasn’t meant to hear it, but he did and he bit his tongue to keep from saying something. Whatever he was feeling, Dean was feeling it tenfold, if not more. Humans alone had the ability to feel joy and pain to the extent that they did and though Cas had often envied that, he did not now. He found it hard to conceive a pain deeper than this.   
They stood there all day as it burned. They did not eat or drink or sit to rest. They stood, watching the body turn to ash. Once it was ash, Sam got into the Impala and sat in the back seat, head in his hands. Dean didn’t move. It was only once smoke no longer rose from the ashes, once they were cold, that he moved from his position to one closer to the ash. He put his hand over it, checking for any last traces of heat, and when he found none, he made a noise in the back of his throat that sounded like a choked sob, just one brief gasp of agony, and walked to the car. Clenching his fists to keep from going to him, Castiel opened the door to the back seat of the Impala and sat, looking out the window at the pile of ash. It took another hour before Dean started the car and drove them home. 

Before he’d met the Winchesters, before he’d become human for a time, he didn’t understand human sorrow in the face of death. He had seen heavens of many humans, had watched them relax into a place with no pain, no sorrow, only joy, and he didn’t understand why humans would want their loved ones not to have that. Now he knew better. For one, humanity didn’t know heaven the way he did. To them it was a concept and a nebulous one at that. They didn’t know that their relatives were happier than they’d ever been and that all the things that hurt them had been washed away. They only knew that the person they loved could no longer experience things with them. Even seeing Mary in her heaven, with John and her boys, he still felt a jab of sorrow that he wouldn’t see her again for a long time, if not ever. It was better there, he knew that, and it seemed selfish for the Winchesters to want their mother back fighting, hurting, losing and winning but ultimately taking hit after hit and getting back up. How could they want that for her if they knew she was in a place where she would never be hurt again? But he knew the answer to that too. She was gone. They missed her presence, her voice and smell and smile. Those things still existed but could no longer exist for them and with them. Knowing she was happy somewhere probably helped, but Castiel himself could attest that the loss of a parent hurt because the being that created you, cared for you, helped you become yourself was no longer. You were a finished work, and the artist had left to do something else.   
Dean retreated to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of whiskey. Sam sat down across from him and reached for the bottle. Dean took a long pull before handing it to his brother.  
“You were probably too small to remember, but I remember when Mom got us matching shirts. Yours said ‘little brother’ and mine said ‘big brother’. I was like...four? I thought it was really dumb at first, I wanted to wear a dinosaur shirt.”  
He chuckled wetly and took the bottle from Sam, tossing his head back to down another mouthful.  
“But then she said that if you just wore your shirt and I didn’t wear mine, someone might think you were their little brother. Well that got me pretty up in arms, let me tell you. I wasn’t thrilled about having a noisy, smelly baby around but damnit you were MY noisy, smelly baby and nobody else was calling dibs. So I wore the stupid shirt. She thought it was so cute.”  
“When she came back, she told me this story,” Sam said. “About something she did before she met dad, when she was still a Campbell. Apparently there was a shapeshifter they were hunting but it was really picky--it would only choose really hot girls so it could pick up guys at bars. And so once mom figured out which girl it was, they got into this flirting war with some asshole with a bike which turned into a catfight. Except everyone was watching so Mom got them to take it outside so they could get their knives out,”  
“She never told me this one.”  
Sam smiled and continued on to the fight in the parking lot, which had been monitored and then the shifter snapping and trying to come at Mary with a pair of stiletto heels. By the end of it, both brothers were laughing and crying simultaneously and Dean took another drink.  
“Do you remember when she learned about Twitter and got hooked on that conspiracy theory guy?”  
“How many cases did she think he’d found. Fifteen?”  
“Gotta be.”  
Cas stood by the door, feelling both intrusive and left out. About halfway through the bottle, Dean looked at him and kicked a chair out, nodding to it. Cas approached slowly and sat down.  
“She told me a story about you as a baby, Dean. Apparently the first time she tried to give you a bath, she thought you had been swapped with some kind of creature because as soon as your foot hit the water, you screamed like she was burning you. She said she had to basically wrestle you as a newborn into the sink to get washed.”  
“She was teaching Jack to throw a knife,” Sam said. Dean froze for a moment, but nodded.  
“She adopted him, like she was his own mom.”  
“More like a grandma, since he considered all three of us his dads,” Sam laughed. “Did you know he tried to call her ‘grandma’ once?”  
“No he did not.”  
They drank and they told stories and when the bottle was empty, Dean brought out two more. They drank until Dean tried to stand and couldn’t manage it, laying his head down on the kitchen table.  
“I think I have to puke,” he muttered.  
Cas hoisted him up with ease, one of Dean’s arms thrown over his shoulders as Cas wrapped an arm around his waist.  
“Let’s get you to a bathroom then. You always bitch about having to clean vomit from the tiles.”  
Dean burped and gagged a little and Cas looked over his shoulder at Sam, who was wobbly, but standing.   
“You good?”  
Sam waved an enormous hand at him.  
“Yeah, you get him.”  
There was a truly impressive amount of vomiting and after Cas made him brush his teeth and gargle with mouthwash and drink at least two glasses of water, Dean found himself in his bed, drunk and half-asleep, looking at Castiel standing in the doorway. The angel was backlit by the bathroom lights glowing behind him and in Dean’s alcohol-induced daze, it looked like he was bathed in holy light.  
“She’s happy where she is, right Cas?” he mumbled.   
“Nothing can hurt her there,” Cas assured him. “When I saw her, she was having a picnic at the park with you and John. Sam was in a your father’s lap and a butterfly had landed on his head. Your mother was trying to get a picture before it flew away.”  
“I ‘member that day sorta.” Dean’s voice was becoming softer, his words slurring together even more as sleep pulled at him.  
“It must have been one of her favorites.”  
“Stay.”  
“Dean?”  
“C’mere.” He held out an arm and tried to move the covers to make room for Cas.  
“Are you sure?”  
“If the room wasn’t spinning so much, I’da pulled you in here already.”  
Cas sat on the edge of Dean’s bed and unlaced his shoes. He slipped off his trenchcoat, then his suit jacket.  
“If I barf on your suit, nobody’s gonna be happy.”  
Cas sighed and pulled off his dress pants, his shirt and tie, and his socks, leaving him in a white undershirt and briefs. Dean tugged at his arm and the angel laid down beside him.   
“M’sorry.”  
“It’s okay, Dean.”  
“You can’t--you’re not dead to me. Already lost you too many times.”  
“Shhh,” Cas said softly, stroking Dean’s hair. Dean scooted closer and rested his head on Cas’s shoulder, letting the angel’s arm curl around him.  
“Sleep, Dean.”  
He already was.


	7. Coming Down the Mountain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meant to be read as a prelude to the last scene/shot in Moriah

Souls were bursting from the ground--hell releasing everything they’ve ever put down. The ground shook, graves are shifting and limbs began to sprout from the earth like dandelions in the spring. Castiel let his angel blade fall into his palm.   
Dean looked around in horror, his brother on one side of him and his lover on the other. Sam clutched the bullet wound in his shoulder and in an instant, Dean flashed through all that he and Sam have been through together.  
Carrying his brother out as their house burned behind him.  
Giving him the last bowl of Froot Loops.  
Watching him go off to college.  
Showing up on his doorstep to look for their father.  
Watching him detox from demon blood.  
Sam’s face as they injected blood into Dean, bringing him back to humanity.  
Monsters and demons and blood and hell and then Jack, them being fathers. Their mother returning. Their mother being lost. Their son, currently lying on the ground, his wings burned into the grass.  
He had fought for his family once and he would do it again.

He looked at Castiel and had the same flash of everything they’d done.  
Castiel illuminated in lightning, lightbulbs shattering around him.  
A gravelly voice telling him that he had been raised from perdition.  
Shouting at Cas, cursing at him, praying to him.  
Fighting angels and demons.  
Purgatory.  
Losing him, the feeling that his entire being would break apart.  
Finding him again.  
Jack and then his death.  
Castiel’s return and his promise never to leave like that again.  
Kisses, shared a hundred different times in a hundred different ways.   
Sex, with one of them buried deep within the other’s flesh, both clinging tightly to each other as they raced toward completion.  
Cas’s hand stroking his hair as they sat on the couch together, showing Jack a movie.  
Cas’s thigh resting against his under the table.  
Cas and Jack wearing matching expressions of confusion as he tried to explain the Matrix trilogy to them.   
Cas, the look on his face when Dean said that he was dead to him.   
Cas, the look on his face, stepping in front of their son to protect him from a bullet.  
Cas, just moments ago, the agony in his every motion as they knelt above their son, currently lying on the ground, his wings burned into the grass.  
He had fought for his family before and he would do it again. 

Dean strode forward slowly and took one, then two of the iron fence posts. The zombies were drawing closer and with an iron spike in each hand, he tossed one to Sam. They backed up until they were clustered in a triangle facing outward, all guarding each others’ backs. The world was ending again. Everything they had done seemed for naught. He had everything to lose.   
Dean Michael Winchester tightened his grip on the iron fence spike and let one hand drift back to squeeze Cas’s hand before he settled it on the base of the spike.   
They weren’t going down without a fight, and three Winchesters against the world?  
He liked those odds.


End file.
